Army soldiers guard the streets during a Coptic Christmas eve mass at the main cathedral in Cairo January 6, 2014.(Reuters / Mohamed Abd El Ghany) / Reuters

After cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and deposing Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian military is looking to undermine Hamas in Gaza as it “threaten its national security,” Reuters reports.

Egypt’s long-term plan includes working with Hama’s political
rivals Fatah and backing anti-Hamas activists in Gaza, which has
been under the Palestinian militant group’s control since 2007,
four diplomatic and security officials told the news agency.

Mass protests, similar to those across Egypt that resulted in
ouster of two presidents since the Arab Spring started in 2011,
will be one of the main tactics to cripple Hamas, the officials
said.

"The aid Egypt will mainly provide to the anti-Hamas groups
will be logistical, not financial,” one of the top officials
said.

Egypt’s military hopes that the crackdown on Hamas, which it
insists threatens Egypt’s national security, may be turned around
against the group's leadership.

"Surely, the world will not stand still and allow Hamas to
kill Palestinians. Someone will interfere," said the
Egyptian security official. "But so far we are only working
on firing the first spark."

Egypt accuses Hamas of backing Al-Qaeda-linked militant groups
which attacked security forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula over
the past few months as well as spreading violence to Cairo and
other cities.

The military also accuses Morsi, the deposed president, and his
Muslim Brotherhood of supporting Hamas and having long-lasting
links to it.

"We know Hamas is the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood
(members) are terrorists and no country could develop with
terrorists in or around it," the security official said.

Many Egyptians believe the Brotherhood even intended to give
Hamas part of the Sinai – an allegation that the group has
denied.

As Egyptian security officials see it, undermining Hamas in Gaza
means being liberated from “the terrorism of the
Brotherhood.”

Last month, the Egyptian government formally declared the Muslim
Brotherhood a terrorist organization and accused it of being
behind of an attack that killed 16 people in December.

Hamas denies accusations of terrorism, however, and the Muslim
Brotherhood insists it is committed to peaceful activism. Hamas
has repeatedly said since the July military takeover that it has
no armed presence in Egypt and that its main goal is confronting
its arch-foe Israel.

"We do not intervene in Egyptian internal affairs," Gaza
prime minister and Hamas deputy leader Ismail Haniyeh said last
month. "Egypt cannot do without us and we cannot do without
Egypt. This historical, geographic and security link can never be
severed."

A Hamas official told Reuters that the group “did not and
never would intervene in internal Egyptian affairs."

"No one should ever dream to weaken Hamas," he said,
blaming Cairo of inciting violence and trying to provoke chaos.

The Egyptian officials dismissed Hamas’s comments, saying that
their judgments were not based on what the movement’s leaders
say, but on “intelligence and information.”

Meanwhile, as Egyptian security officials plan close cooperation
with Fatah and claim there have been discussions of ways to help
Fatah undermine Hamas, a senior official of Fatah denied any plot
to crack down on the militant group.

"There is a lot of anger in Gaza. People are suffering, but
protest is not easy. We cannot hope that Hamas will vanish
tomorrow," he said.

Cairo also hopes that “other armed groups in Gaza that are
not on good terms with Hamas” will be also useful in
accomplishing its anti-Hamas plan.

The newly-revealed intentions, if fulfilled, would not be the
first crackdown to affect Gaza directly.

The military-backed regime in Cairo has already tightened its
economic vise on the neighboring region by destroying a majority
of the 1,200 tunnels under the border between Egypt and Gaza that
are used to smuggle weapons and food into the coastal Palestinian
territory, which is also being blockaded by Israel.